The Canadian Sportsman
March 04, 2010
Well, I tried to fill out my Dream Stable form last week and it was a big pain in the you-know-what.
It was a helluva lot easier back when they ran the full sales results in The Sportsman and then they were all in one place and I didn’t have to get on the computer and try to find everything.
You see I’m still getting the hang of this computer stuff. Just because I write a blog, everyone thinks I’m Willy Gates now. But I still get all muddled up. I click on the wrong thing and that takes me to somewhere I don’t want to go and then I have to wait until the next time my tree-hugging son Robbie stops by so he can fix everything.
This whole thing is sort of Robbie’s fault in the first place. He’s the one who thought his old man should ‘broaden his horizons’ and get on the Internet. He set me up with one of those Hotmailer email accounts and the only good that’s come from it is that I found out I’m related to the King of Siam, who has left me a substantial inheritance.
One time Robbie wasn’t around and so I called the number for ‘technical support.’ Technically, I didn’t feel very supported by the smart-aleck kid who picked up the phone. He told me that a five-year-old could fix my problem and that I just needed to ‘reboot the CPU.’
The what now? I didn’t boot anything in the first place so why should I reboot it? And what in the name of Christmas is a CPU?
So I told this little wiseacre that I was about to reboot him in the britches if he didn’t start using The King’s English. Luckily, Bernie grabbed the phone and stopped me before I tore a strip off his know-it-all manager, too.
How am I supposed to complete my Dream Stable form or forward my banking information to my new Siamese friend if I’ve got a wonky CPU?
I hate computers.
Comments (0)
Print
February 04, 2010
A load of super crap: Why Super Bowl would be ashamed to share a name with the “big game"
The Super Bowl was great back when it used to be a football game.
The big game.
Hard-hitting excitement.
Tough guys acting tough.
Women in the kitchen, kids in their rooms and you and a few buddies having some beer and watching a pigskin classic.
That’s the way things used to be.
Now, all we’ve got is two weeks of nothing but talk leading up to the ‘big game’ where football seems to be an afterthought. Why in the heck do we need an eight-hour pre-game show? Here’s what you need to know before the game: the Indianapolis Colts are going to play the New Orleans Saints on Feb. 7 around 6 p.m. in Miami. Both teams are good. There’s your pre-game update. And it took me 15 seconds.
Then, it’ll be five more hours for the game itself, once you consider all the commercials, big half-time show and those dreadful sideline people yammering on.
Cripes, Bernie can make a whole casserole in the time it takes someone to sing the national anthem nowadays. Not to mention the delay when whoever they’ve got passing for entertainment gets a little too frisky with the dry ice machine at the half and lets off a smoke bomb that fogs the field for the next half hour.
I can’t be sitting around on the couch for 13 hours, not with my bursitis. May as well just supersoak me in Bengay and leave me to die.
My son Robbie was reading an article in his ESPN magazine the other day. It said that in an average 60-minute NFL game, there’s less than 13 minutes of game action since the clock runs between plays, during the huddle or whatever. Thirteen minutes! Even regular season games are a waste of time.
Here’s an idea. Let’s do my 15-second pre-game show, followed by singing the anthem straight up in 75 seconds — the way nature intended. Then we’ll do the whole game in 13 minutes, ditching the dead air, crappy commercials and the half-time show along the way.
The Super Bowl in less than 15 minutes? Why I won’t even need to run a hot bath.
December 31, 2009
Celebrating New Year’s and making horses retire is all a bunch of hooey
New Year’s is too loud.
Always has been, always will be. Kids cranking those cheap tin noisemakers, blowing into a cardboard horn and squealing with delight. Drunken yahoos running down my street in the middle of the night, making a racket for no reason other than the stupid universe just got another year older.
If you ask me, getting older isn’t something to be celebrated. It’s like being happy about getting a flat tire or picking the first, second and fourth-place horses in the triactor. Doesn’t do much for me and certainly doesn’t make me want to pop a champagne cork or dance the night away.
I won’t be going out this year on New Year’s Eve, not that I’ve been invited anywhere. I like staying in with my wife Bernie and my dog Patches and watching Dick Clark on TV.
Jeepers, the years sure caught up with him in a big hurry, didn’t they? Since his stroke a few years back, they let Dick hang around to kiss his wife at midnight, but otherwise they’ve got this Ryan Seacrest kid doing all the stuff Dick used to do. Well, I don’t like it.
My kids tell me that Seacrest is the ‘new’ Dick Clark, what with the Top 40 radio countdowns and being hip to today’s music with the American Bandstand Idol or whatever it’s called. Well, I don’t want a new Dick Clark, especially when the old one is standing four feet away and looking sad.
I’m not getting any younger, either. And New Year’s always makes me think about those old racing warriors that get their pink slips when they reach age 14. They call it ‘mandatory retirement’. I call it a bunch of hooey.
I remember when they put me out to pasture at my job. Couldn’t keep up with the new technology, they said. Ha. I bet they’d be surprised to hear about my new career as a blogger, wouldn’t they?
It’s the same thing for the horses. Some of them probably should’ve been retired nine years ago, but some of them are still getting the job done out there on the racetrack. There was one 13-year-old racing at The Meadows that won 15 times and made close to 90 grand this year. Sounds lame and broken down to me. Better banish him from the track forever!
Every horse and person is different so why does there have to be a strict rule about retirement age? If they are still going strong at age 14, let them and their owners continue to enjoy racing. Can’t the judges police this if they see a horse that’s endangered or unfit to compete?
I guess not. That’s why Dick Clark, me, the mandatory retirees and the rest of the Seacrest-ed elderly aren’t celebrating this year.
So knock it off with those noisemakers.
Blog Archives
