Roger O Green

As soon as I write that I’m not watching the Olympics…

Here’s a question for you all: how much of a home team fan should a member of the media be?

My niece (wife’s brother’s daughter) has been staying at our house for much of the last three weeks. She is really into horses; she even owns one. So when she wanted to watch TV, and they had show horses jumping over barriers, we ended up viewing that. Which led to watching some other activities. Sunday morning, live, I got to watch Andy Murray of the UK beat Roger Federer of Switzerland, one of the greatest tennis players in the world, in straight sets, four weeks to the day after Federer beat Murray at Wimbledon, at the same venue. I was fist-pumping so much that my daughter demanded that I stop.

Then Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night, we were up until 10 or 11 pm, watching various events. This was partially a function of being on vacation, with no chance to record the programs. (And no real desire to; one cannot watch old sports events.)

Jaquandor asked a series of Olympic-related questions, and I started answering them at his blog, when, suddenly, I realized it was going on too long for his reply box, but was just the right length for a blog post. Thanks, guy.

What are your favorite events?

Tennis, volleyball. Although I watched a lot of track (dashes and hurdles) and got into them.

What events do you just not get?

I still find synchronized swimming exceedingly funny. I GET it, but there is a move afoot in the competition to get rid of the excessive makeup, which currently makes it seem more like theater and less like athletics, when it clearly is more the latter.

What events would you include or exclude?

Include baseball and/or softball. I’m disinclined to exclude anything, even if I personally don’t care about it.

Granting that providing tape-delayed coverage is a necessary evil given the distances in time zones…

I don’t grant that. In an Internet world, I found out way too much. Even NBC reported on a couple stories, including Michael Phelps’ record-breaking medal, aware that everyone knew anyway. Lots of people in the US were finding ways to watch it on the BBC.

I think there needs to be tape delays in 2014 (Russia) and 2018 (South Korea) but there should be only enough so that American audiences don’t have to watch the Games at 4 a.m. Eastern. For the 2016 games in Rio, the time zone is only one hour off US Eastern time, and this should allow for more live coverage.

What could NBC be doing better with its coverage?

Obviously, the coverage of the individual sports tend to be all over the place, quality-wise. There are ALWAYS sports announcers who make observations about how much an athlete “wants it,” or otherwise read his or her mind.

Mary Carillo did a series of quite interesting series of stories about the UK, including, of all things, the institution of Greenwich Mean Time.

But the infotainment folks of the TODAY show irritate me. Al and Matt wrestling; new anchor Savannah being a gal pal in the Olympic village; Al playing cricket; anything involving Ryan Seacrest and Jenna Bush. (Read Ken Levine’s satiric take on how Seacrest got his NBC contract.) One Saturday morning, two people were telling us the Facebook or Twitter conversation about the Olympics was heavy in Maryland and Virginia, opining that this was the case because an athlete is from one of those states; I had to shut it off.

Here’s a question for you all: how much of home team fans should the media be? On the TODAY show, US hurdler Lolo Jones tearfully complained about a New York Times article critical of her two days before her finals, where she finished a close fourth.

How weird is it watching Olympics without Jim McKay on the teevee?

I loved Jim McKay. But Bob Costas is fine.

Do professional athletes in sports like basketball make for better, or lesser, competition?

Who is an amateur athlete anymore? Many college basketball players in the US, are 1-and-done, attending college for a year, maybe two, then make themselves eligible for the NBA draft. Track stars get stipends or appearance fees, or something that allows them to travel over the country.

And the pros in tennis start as teenagers. The pool of amateurs would be exceedingly small. Moreover, the Williams sisters, and the Bryan twins seemed to love representing the US, as did many of the other athletes, especially from the smaller nations.

How big a problem IS doping, and what’s the future of the very notion of ‘performance-enhancing’ medicine?

I really felt sorry for that young female swimmer from China who, a number of people suggested, had cheated because of her incredible time, though she was cleared a day later. To the question, there will always be athletes looking to get an edge and folks who have to keep their ears to the ground to try to stop it.

There’s a bigger problem, though. The weird thing about the Olympics is that the rules are largely determined by the governing body of that particular sports. No sport should be so designed that throwing a match should be advantageous to that team, as was happening in badminton.

Deconstruction, in a good way

I have tried to make it clear that I’m not especially good at building things, or putting things together. But I felt really good about taking something apart recently.

We bought a new, much larger shed back in the spring because the old one, which came with the house we bought in 2000, was falling apart, even rotting in places. Still, it was built sturdily enough that I couldn’t just pull it apart. Fortunately, I called my friend Norman, who brought me implements of destruction: a crowbar, a sledgehammer, and a hacksaw. (He brought his son Sam, who I’ve known since he was a couple of months old; he now has a beard, which is a bit disconcerting.)

The Daughter actually used a screwdriver to remove the doors. Then I used mostly the crowbar and took off the front, sides, and top. I thought the back would be tricky, it being so close to the fence, but I was then able to tip the shed over without having it crush me. Once the back was removed, the frame pretty much collapsed. I thought I might have to use the sledgehammer more often, but I picked it up only a couple times, to separate one section from another. This took about three hours over two days; there is still disposal to deal with, with the 2 by 4s going to my in-laws. Still, it gave me a real sense of accomplishment, something I achieve mentally all the time.

I often forget that I love doing physical labor. It doesn’t happen at my current job very often. At my position at FantaCo back in the 1980s, I would haul in the new comic books or our publications. I’d wander around the store helping customers or work in the back room stocking inventory. But just doing exercise is boring to me; can’t watch video workouts. Riding the bike is good because it’s functional. The now-rare opportunity to play racquetball is fun. Using the stationary bike is OK because I can do something else (read, watch TV).

It’s this need that explains why I helped our choir director move last month. I LIKE moving other people; it’s good physical exercise but lacks the emotional angst of moving oneself. It was only the loading side. I had trouble with loading the truck, so I hired a top professional mover Las Vegas to help me, and the three volunteers and I had to just unload the truck. As moves go, a piece of cake.

Picture from Treehugger

D is for Duplication; D is for Duplication

To this day, I have copies of correspondence from the 1970s and 1980s, back in the day when I used to write something called “letters.”

From here: “The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo) is a low-cost printing press that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. Mimeographs…were a common technology in printing small quantities, as in office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins. Early fanzines were printed in this technology because it was widespread and cheap. In the late 1960s, mimeographs… were gradually displaced by photocopying and offset printing.”

This is just one of many technologies I was not particularly good at. But my father, who usually did the bulletin even into the early 1970s at our church, Trinity AME Zion in Binghamton, NY, was excellent at typing the stencil, then wrapping it “around the ink-filled drum of the rotary machine.” When I attempted to do this, the stencil was always wrinkled, and the subsequent output of copies not particularly attractive.

A YouTube video of the Gestetner 180. My wife still remembers mimeos in her small rural school district as recently as the early 1980s.

Here’s something I did not know: “The word ‘mimeograph’ was first used by Albert Blake Dick when he licensed [Thomas] Edison’s patents in 1887.” The A.B. Dick Company of Chicago once owned the trademarked name, but “over time, the term became generic and is now an example of a genericized trademark.”

But what if you were going to write something, and you wanted to have one or two copies of it? From The Exciting History of Carbon Paper! “Carbon paper is thin paper coated with a mixture of wax and pigment, that is used between two sheets of ordinary paper to make one or more copies of an original document.”

To this day, I have copies of correspondence from the 1970s and 1980s, back in the day when I used to write something called “letters.”

Of course, the limitation of carbon paper was that it “could only produce copies of out-going correspondence…; if copies were needed of incoming documents, they still had to be copied by hand. This problem was not solved until the middle of the twentieth century when xerography became commercially available in the form of the photocopier… The invention of the photocopier began the decline in demand for carbon paper that has continued to the present day.”

Still, the terminology of making a “carbon copy”, or cc, has survived, in e-mails. One can even make a bcc, or blind carbon copy, with no wax and pigment required.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Meow- random questions

Someone I was attracted to had been attracted to me.

For no good reason, I went to the April, May, and June 2008 editions of Curious as a Cat, and picked random questions. I would have had a picture of a cat here, but goodness, I don’t want Chris H to go all apoplectic on me. So instead, I put a nice librarian’s card CATalog.

1) Of all the people you know, whose name suits them the best?

Some guy named Barber, who is well-groomed.

2) If you could control one aspect of your death–except the timing–what would you do?

Avoiding pain. I’m really surprised how long it has taken modern medicine to recognize the efficacy of minimizing pain.

3) What is the largest amount of money you have earned in one day?

$17,600 on November 9, 1998, on some game show, though I didn’t get paid until March 17, 1999.

4) If you spoke English with an accent other than the one you currently have, how would you choose to sound?

French or Italian. Seems romantic. Or like that stalker, Pepe le Peu.

5) Be honest: how do you feel about people who smoke?

I love some of the people, but hate, HATE the habit. I can smell it from 30 feet away, seriously. And being in an elevator can be treacherous unless I use my magic power to block the insides of my nostrils, without touching them, and breathe through my mouth, and I can’t do that forever.

6) Whose death touched your own sense of mortality the most?

Pretty much anyone younger or slightly older than I. There have been a few.

7) In what part of the world–other than where you are now–would you most like to live?

Some days it’s San Francisco or Montreal. There are probably places I’ve never been, such as Rome or Paris or Auckland, but I need to actually have BEEN there.

8) What do you think the role of religion should be in today’s world?

A personal experience that doesn’t trample on other people’s rights.

9) What was the most romantic moment of your life? (Details!!)

No, thanks.

10) Name your least favorite candy. Why do you dislike it so much?

NECCO wafers. They look appealing but I HATE the taste; reminds me of chalk.

11) What is the slowest realization you’ve ever come to?

That someone I was attracted to had been attracted to me. Nothing ever came of it.

12) What is the most sacred or holy spot you’ve ever seen?

In 1995, at the end of a pier in Galveston, TX at 5 a.m. when the water was coming in and the sun was coming up.

13) If you found out that someone you just met is a recovering alcoholic, would that change the way you felt about them? How?

Yes, probably favorably.

14) How often do you see your parents? Would you rather see them more often, less often, or about as often as you currently see them?

I’d like to see them more a LOT more often.

15) What do you most like or appreciate about the opposite sex?

I can’t explain. It’s their very differentness. Yes, that’s not a word.

The Old Cowboy in Church

The preacher approached the cowboy and said, “I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church.”

One of those things someone e-mailed me that I actually agree with. I’ve visited a few of them when I first went church shopping.

One Sunday morning, an old cowboy entered a church just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt, and boots that were worn and ragged. In his hand, he carried a worn-out old hat and an equally worn, dog-eared Bible.

The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen. The people of the congregation were all dressed in expensive clothes and fine jewelry. As the cowboy took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled by his appearance and did not attempt to hide it.

As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor. “Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship in church.” The old cowboy assured the preacher he would.

The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored. The preacher approached the cowboy and said, “I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church.”

“I did,” replied the old cowboy.

“And what was his reply?” asked the preacher.

“Well, sir, God told me that he didn’t have a clue what I should wear. He said he’d never been in this church.”

How would Jesus vote?

The lens popped out of my glasses yesterday, and the little screw got lost. So if you see me walking around with my prescription sunglasses today, even when it’s not that sunny out, you’ll know why…