Tag: Sunday Page 3 of 5

Sports Illustrated (SI) isn’t what it used to be but should they even bother with offering an “opt out” for the swimsuit edition anymore? Everyone who subscribes to SI knows about the swimsuit issue and if offended by it probably isn’t subscribing to it in the first place. If you can find a newsstand (do they exist anymore?), you probably will avoid this issue if sensibilities are thusly affected. This single edition, however, helps make up for the lousy shadow of its former self that SI now is the rest of the year. Beautiful women in skimpy bathing suits have a way of making us forget, at least temporarily, why we subscribe to or even care about SI in the first place.
Is it possible to start and stop writing for a long period of time and still have something readable when you’re finished? It is when you write short paragraph bursts like this. Only a handful of writers have the luxury of hours of uninterrupted writing time each day unless perhaps they are loners who’ll write in alcoholic stupors, subsequently finding time to edit once sober.
Speaking of uninterrupted writing time, who has the luxury of uninterrupted reading time? That is, can you ever devote hours upon hours each day to just reading? Who has this kind of life anymore? That is why good blogs are some of the best reading materials available on the web for the busy, active general population we’ve become.

Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos were better than the New England Patriots today—a lot better. We’ll see if their record-breaking offense can handle the tougher-than-anything-they’ve-seen NFC Champion Seattle Seahawk defense in the Super Bowl . The key to beating Manning and the Broncos is to pressure and hit him early and often—something the New England Patriots weren’t able to do.

Yahoo Mail is Gmail Lite—same great taste but less filling and with only half the calories (read capabilities) of the original Gmail. Yahoo mail’s ads are still its worst enemy, too, contributing to its overall, buggy performance; sometimes it seems smooth enough while others leave you waiting for its response—whether it’s downloading a file, trying to respond to an Outlook-style RSVP or figuring out where you stand in an email thread by looking at the “subject” field in the inbox: “Me, Julie, Me, Julie then Julie, Me, Me, Julie.” Me, me, me, me…keep working on it Yahoo. It can get better and has already improved enough where I can use it again sometimes. Now ramp up the speed and we’ll be all set. I can live with the ad bombardment and being marketed to; that is the way of the “free” web these days, anyway, I know.

Speaking of the Internet, when did we get the idea that there is any privacy to be found on the web? Whether it’s our medical histories, credit cards, bank account information or personal documents and photos, “sharing,” Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are in, and confidentiality, privacy, paper trails and personal safeguarding of our documents is out. The lack of privacy is the price we pay for all of the convenience the Internet has brought us this century. Self-monitoring of our accounts and personal data is the only thing we can do so far safeguarding-wise, moving forward, too. That, and hoping we don’t fall victim to identity theft in the first place. But, like the Rutger Hauer character in 1981’s Nighthawks with Sylvester Stallone said, “There is no security.” Sadly, the best remedy (aside from stiffening the penalties for identity theft crime) remains regular monitoring of the information in our accounts.
If half the time the nation spends watching football is time actually spent being productive and doing stuff, just think of the gains we could make in society as a whole? The saying “time goes fast” is so true and we are a nation of watchers, myself included, for far too much of our precious lives. When looked at from this perspective, football is more a distraction from our (generally-speaking and) less than overall satisfying lives than a sports spectacle that can teach us something—unless being patient with the running game lends itself to shorter commute times.

When I open up the sports page in the Sunday paper I wonder why I have to turn to page three to find the TV listings for that day’s sporting events? Print media are dying no matter how hard changes in ownership and editorial staff try to sway our mindsets differently. The digital age is in. One of the main reasons we glance at the sports section is to see what games are on TV. If I can’t find listings until page two or three, I maybe just skip the sports section entirely. That would probably be a lot like most of the readership who have left print subscriptions in droves; enough of the silly “we asked you what you wanted and we listened” pandering, too. Well, sometimes, actually, the paper is delivered on time. I’ll give them that.
What people want on football conference championship Sundays (if we are to take literally both the subliminal as well as less indirect, televised marketing onslaught delivered our way) are new cars, beer, cheerleaders and pizza–lots of pizza. Pizza is good. It’s my go to food group. Cheerleaders at football games are some of the regular distractions that camera people provide during the games. If the game is lousy, not competitive, at least there are smiling, attractive, pompom-waving cheerleaders to gawk at on high-definition screens. Just like the SI swimsuit edition, what more could a nation of watchers want?