Free time is dangerous to have.....

If you have a few minutes to kill or if you're looking for some non-sensical ramblings for the next couple of minutes, then please continue reading on. If however you don't feel like wasting the next few minutes of your life, then stop reading now and save yourself the time. At any rate here are three little items that seem to be causing me an itch so what better place for me to scratch it than here. Again, this is your last chance to get out if you have more pressing things to do and if you read the whole thing and say to yourself at the end "Why did I read that?" well, don't say that I didn't warn you.


ITEM #1: Flintstone Vitamins

So apparently nowadays they have chewy Fintstone vitamins. Yup, vitamins that eat like gummy bears and honestly, it's not a bad idea. We all took vitamins as kids and we remember what they tasted like. They were crumbly and chalky, always got stuck in our teeth. They often tasted like tainted sweet tarts and weren't a joy to take. My issue isn't with the gumminess so much as it is with the Flintsone aspect. I've got nothing against the Flintstones, in fact I rather enjoy Fred and Barney. When I played the saxaphone, I was delighted on day to have figured out how to play the Flintstones theme on my winded instrument. Rather my issues here are twofold and they follows:

1. When was the last time you saw the Flintstones on TV?

2. Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles conflict of interest.

So the first issue listed, is when was the last time did you see the Flintstones on TV. My answer is I don't remember and I'm willing to bet if I don't remember, well then neither do you. Half the draw of the Flintstone vitamins was the fact they were the Flintstones. Being a young and stupid child taking vitamins seemed more fun if it was in the shape of something I knew and recognized. At least that seems to me the point of putting vitamins in the shape of well known cartoon characters. Well, children today don't know who the Flintstones are anymore, so why do they still appear in vitamin form. To me it defies logic, but then again taking the time to write about something like this would seem to defy logic as well.

2. Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles, Post cereal's answer to General Mills Trix and Cocoa Puffs. I have no issue with the pebbles cereals really, even though I like the Puffs and Trix more. The problem here is the conflicting message coming across with Barney and Fred who adorn both the boxes of cereal and the bottles of the vitmins. In one breath, they are a healthy suppliment trying to keep your body balanced. In the other breath, they are purveyours of sugar loaded artifically flavored food stuff that in no way suppiments your health. The point here is you can't be a food sponsor bigamist. Either support the healthy stuff or the not healthy stuff, it can't be both ways. In Fred and Barney's defense though, they are just cartoon characters, so what choice do they really have?


ITEM #2: Looks like Cube has melted

I'm a lower-middle class white kid who grew up in New Hampshire, where our ethnicties consist of white people, red-necks and old people, so I'm not going to pretened that I have some great connection to the rap group NWA, but I can say almost unequivicollay that I don't think anyone ever expected that Ice Cube would be reprising his role of Nick Persons from "Are We There Yet?" in an upcoming sequel "Are We Done Yet" (and no I didn't know those snippets of information off the top of my head, that's why God created IMDB). I just find it somewhat odd that a man who was part of one of the most influential and breakthrough raps groups ever is now staring in (and producing) third rate family comedies. Listen I'm not dumping on the guy for doing it. Make a living however you must and if you have a good time and get paid along the way, all the better to you sir. But did anyone ever envision something like this happening, considering where his career started? It's just not a career path I think anyone ever envisioned for him. It'd be like if we woke up tomorrow and Bryant Gumbel decided he was going to quit journalism and become a pimp. Or if Donald Trump decided to give away all his money to charity and become a hippy or if Paris Hilton suddenly had some kind of redeeming value. Sure these are things that could happen, but would you ever expect them to happen in a million years? Yeah not so much. Again, this isn't meant to be a dig at the guy, it just seems a little odd, that's all. The real question in all of this though is what do DJ Yella and MC Ren think of all this? (OK maybe the more important question is what are DJ Yella and MC Ren doing nowadays, but I digress).


ITEM #3: Your ass if for sitting not for speaking out of

Now we move more into a realm of something I understand, sports and sports writing. Some many sports writers/commentators and other such affiliated folks seem to be speaking out of their ass a good deal of the time when it comes to matters they simply don't know about. But instead of doing the normal, intelligent thing which would be to not talk, they open their mouths or type away at their keyboards anyway. Case in point in Peter King. King is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated whose primary responsibility is covering football, something he does quite well. Over on SI.com he has a weekly column called Monday Morning Quarterback in which he discusses all things football until the end of the column. He has at the end of the colunm a section called "Ten Things I Think I Think". It's not a bad section, gives him a chance to sprinkle in some opinion and idea into his column. Nine of the items are usually football related and then he gets to the tenth and then he lists off his "non-football thoughts of the week". Well this week there was this gem:

"Let's hear the grousing about the selection committee now. In the West, the 1, 2, 3 and 4 seeds remain. South: 1, 2, 3, 5. East: 1, 2, 5, 6. Midwest: 1, 3, 5, 7. Of the top 12 seeds, only two, Wisconsin and Washington State, lost in the first two rounds. Pretty good judgment by the committee, it looks like."

King, in that paragraph, is referring to the selection committee for the Men's NCAA Basketball tournament. The problem with what he wrote in the beginning and what he wrote in the end is that the two statements don't match up, at all. He appears to be areguing that by virtue of the fact that the majority of seeds left are higher seeds, that the committee did a good job in placing schools that were selected. Well, if he had been paying any attention to what was being said about the selection committee, maybe he woudln't have written the above paragraph. You see, no one was complaining about the seeding of the teams in the tournament, rather they were complaining teams that weren't included (Drexel, Syracuse and Kansas State) and probably should have been versus teams that were included (Stanford, Arkansas) and probably shouldn't have been. He's arguing that the selection committee did a good job because the higher seeds remain? Well there was really no doubt or debate about the higher seeds, in fact there seldom is (unless a high seed goes to a mid-major, then Billy Packer will explode into rage). The biggest debate is always around where certain at large schools and what seeds they will end up with, as was the case this year. The fact that the majority of the higher seeds have moved on does in no way validate the job the selection committee did as good. The fact the committe placed schools that everyone already knew were in and the fact that they have survived doesn't mean they did a good job. Simply it means the better, more talented teams are winning this year, end of story.

If anything, the committee didn't do a good job, by pitting mid-majors against one another early so they eliminate one another and reduce the cinderalla potential. Or what about the fact that everyone was talking up the ACC and Big Ten and those conferences put in 7 and 6 schools respectively and they now each have a grand total of 1 left? Did the committee really do a good job, by over committing to power conferences? By having some very questionable omissions and admissions? By making David fight himself, so that by the time he got to Goliath he was too tired to pick up the stone?

I know I'm repeating myself here, but just because the higher seeds won doesn't mean the committee did their job well in any way shape or form. The issue this year had nothing to do with seeding, so it's pretty damn stupid to base your argument on seeding when seeding has nothing to do with the real argument. Please Mr. King, stick to covering football you do it well, but spare us your thoughts on the NCAA selection committee, espcially when you have no idea about what in the hell you are talking about.

------------

And there you have it boys and girls, that's it for now. If you read the whole thin through, well bless you for taking the time and no, there is no way I can give you back that portion of your life. That is all for now, until later....

Must have flown away

March Madness is nearly upon us, you know that wonderful time of year when college basketball takes over the TV and dominates the sports talk radio airwaves. We hear about small schools we've seldom heard of getting their chance to shine on a national stage. We see star players come out to shine and better yet, players we've never heard of will sometimes shine too. There's a lot of hype surrounding a lot of things, some of it warranted and some of it not, but such is the nature of the beast.

Last season there was a lot of hype surrounding Adam Morrison, then a star of everyone's favorite mid-major feel good team Gonzaga. We heard about his passion, his energy, his diabetes, his long hair and "porn star" moustache (it wasn't and is still not a porn star stache, it was neither thick or bushy enough to qualify. It was rather wispy, something a 7th grader could grow, but that is neither here nor there) We heard about how he played X-Box from across the country with then Duke Star JJ Reddick. We heard more about him than we wished to hear (at least I did). To be honest though, it wasn't hard to deal with it, more annoying then anything else. But there was one tid-bit of info I couldn't stand. He reminded people of Larry Bird.

First off you have to understand how much I love Larry Bird. Despite the fact I only saw him towards the tale end of his career, he was beyond my favorite basketball player. He was the best player on my favorite team, it only seemed natural. While others my age fawned over Jordan and Pippen, I soaked up everything I could about Larry Bird. Bird was the be all and the end all for me. I understood that he was a unique player, the likes of which may not ever be seen again. So it always needles me a little when other players are compared to him or it is said they are reminded of Bird in some one else.

My issue isn't so much that another player might posses something of the same skill set that Bird did. My issue is everytime a player reminds someone of Bird is because that player is white. Everytime a white guy who is upwards of 6'8" who posesses an outside shot, he automatically reminds everyone Larry Bird and peolpe start comparing him to Larry Bird. Even if in no way shape or form the guy plays like Larry Bird did.

My question here is why does race seem to be the only qualifyer in this comparison. I've never heard anyone but white guys get compared to Larry Bird. Ever. There have to have been at least a couple of black players that posessed skill sets similar to Bird's, right? The odds would have to say so. But you've never heard of them, at least I haven't. Why is it in a sport that has some many things to evaluate, so many qualifiers to look at that things boil back down to race more often than not? (This is a large issue with the NBA in general, one I will rant about on a future date).

For me, it's just frustrating. There's a whole world of other things to look at in evaulating a player and breaking him down. Don't cop out and make race a factor. Don't evaluate a player's ability simply on the way he looks.

I can see how someone could fall into the Morrison - Bird trap. Both played at mid-major school (Gonzaga and Indiana St.) Both had mop-top hair doos and whispy moustaches. Both were slow footed, couldn't jump that high and had good range on their jumpers. That's where the comparison should end, period. Nothing else about how the two play the way of basketball is similar. Bird was an oustanding rebounder, Morrison has a ball fall into his hands after a missed shot once in a while. Bird was also an outstanding passer, he knew how to involve his teammates. Morrison passes only when he feel he doesn't have a shot available and that's not often. Bird was a decent individual defender (at least in the early stages of his career when he could still move before being hobbled by injury) and he was always a great team defender, smart and heady. Morrison would have a tough time defending a folding chair if a folding chair could shoot a basketball. Bird could create his own shot and play in the post if neccesary. Morrison can shoot the ball from the perimeter after running his defender off a screen or two.

I think you get my point (at least I hope you do by now). Aside from posessing good jumpers from the perimeter, there is nothing else as basketball players about the two that is remotely similar. So how can you compare the two in the same breath? It's simple, you can't or at least you shouldn't if you have any sense about basketball whatsoever.

Morrison wasn't the first guy mentioned in the breath of Bird. Similar comparisons arose when the likes of Keith Van Hon and Tom Gugliotta came along and there will be more comparisons down the road. I just hope that someday, somehow somewhere some one says stop. That the comparisons don't really match up oustide of skin color, but that's something for the future I guess not for now.

It's funny, now that Morrison is in the NBA we haven't heard nearly as much about him. Part of that of course is the fact that he plays in Charlotte, not exactly an NBA news hot bed. Part of it is that he's a rookie and unless they're truly lighting the league on fire you don't hear a ton about them. It's funny though because in what we do hear about him now, we don't hear anything about him being Bird like. One has to wonder where all that talk went. How could someone be mentioned in the same breath with one guy almost all the time and then suddenly all those comparisons disappear? Couldn't have been they were wrong to being with? Couldn't have been they were completely off base? Couldn't have been because you looked at one qualifier that really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, could it?

The point I'm trying to make is this I guess. Dont' pigeon hole things. Don't make a comparison that is lazy and wrong because it's easy to do. Be thorough in what you do. And last but not least, don't assume to things are similar just because they look the same.

As for all that talk about Bird and Morrison being comperable, who knows where it went. Maybe it just all flew away.