Dear ESPN,

I, like many of your viewers, am a guy. A guy without a ton of time and the presence of an actual life which precludes me from spending all weekend every weekend watching the games. 

Listen up, because this is where you come in.

What used to be great about ESPN is that a person could watch it and actually get all the sports boiled down into an easily consumable hour (minus your complete and utter disregard for all non-ball sports, but I digress)(…)(…but just to regress for a moment: don't just cover cycling when somebody gets busted for doping, okay?). That was the deal we had. You showed all the important plays, sometimes even in slow-mo and from different angles, and I didn't have to sit through the tedium of actually watching what lately have been amounting to fairly shitty games all around.

Ah, but recently, recently you went and broke that contract. You sullied the bro code.

You went all 24-hour news cycle on us and started just using long shots of pretty talking heads blabbering about what they think and feel about some shit issue. I don't want to watch some pretty face talk about the ramifications of Plaxico Burress' decisions. Used to be, if somebody was going to droll on about an issue like that, you showed actual clips of the player in question playing, not Mr. or Ms. Pretty standing outside the stadium talking into the camera.

Because, honestly, that shit is bor-ing.

In summation: Less pretty; more sports. If I wanted pretty news, I'd watch all the hotties on CNBC tell me how my stock isn't worth a pair of socks from Walmart, 'kay?

five mostly unrelated thoughts:

1.  david beckham is just too ridiculously good looking.  i mean really.  i flush just looking at himsometimes.

2.  i tried to cook plantains this evening with dinner and it was a total failure.  i created tasteless, crispy chips with none of the sweet and salty goodness i associate with the tostones i've eaten at myriad south american restaurants. what went wrong?  maybe they weren't ripe enough.  i was saddened, having high hopes that they would be a fruit/veggie that Z and T might actually willingly consume.  

3.  one more teacher workday and the academic year begins.  in my new role as program coordinator at my new school, i am in charge of one full-time and one part-time assistant.  that's a weird new change for me and has underlined my extreme discomfort in delegation.  i really prefer to do things myself, and i need to get over that.  i'm afraid it's not because of some virtue in which i want to serve others, but because i am a control freak and want to reap heaps of praise when things go well.

4.  i have mixed emotions about john mayer.  there's little to argue with in terms of his guitar-playing ability - it's pretty fucking amazing, although sadly not showcased in the majority of his pop-heavy tunes. he's pretty funny and well-spoken and well-written and self-depreciating, all of which i dig on.  but the bland tapioca of his music sends me a-snoozing, and i took affront somehow in a faculty meeting friday when my extremely well-intentioned new principal used his song 'no such thing' as a springboard into an inservice on school discipline.  in reflection, now, i'm not actually sure what the parallel there was.  i was perhaps too busy having my hackles up being forced to listen to the song looped before the meeting began, then instructed to listen to it again with a copy of the lyrics in my hand.  it's not horrible, but it's not exactly the type of music i'd draw upon for inspiration and deep though, you know?  maybe i'm just still a judgmental music snot, circa my days at wcwm.  but how can that be?  i have new kids on the block on my iPod.

5.  scrunchies are still very popular in gymnastics, i observe.  why?

tomorrow night is my valentine's date with todd - the sox game up in baltimore. funny how i don't think of it as the orioles game. i'm way psyched and there has been so much stressy shit going on in the past weeks that i am going to throw myself into forgetting everything else except baseball. at least for 3 hours.

i have the cutest outfit to wear, too, courtesy of michelle - a pink ribbon sox shirt and pink ribbon sox cap - how perfect is that.

yoooooooooooooooooooooooooook!

Some days I cannot bring myself to behold the news. Heartbreakingly, today's is much like it was months ago–perhaps always has been–and most likely what it will be the next day. So, I flitted through the channels while jogging on the treadmill, landing on ESPN. To what avail, I ask myself. To see dopers, cheats and more dopers?

 But then something astounding happened. I saw something that made me smile, something that rekindled hope in my heart. No, not some overpaid primadonna handling a ball, but a kid in a wheelchair.

how fucked up do you have to be one of the colts fans who boo a 14-year old girl who won an award just because she is wearing a patriots jersey?

i don't care if new england is their biggest rival, she's a 14 year old kid!

that shit gets under my skin.

This evening we watched the first two episodes of season 5 of The Wire and the first two episodes of the new American Gladiators. I want to write some kind of compare and contrast here, but the words might fail me. I will press on.

The Wire:
Some people say it is the best show ever to grace the television. I can't go that far.* I can say that it is the best show currently on TV — of course, I say this knowing that Lost is set to return in a few weeks — and that The Wire will be wrapping a few weeks before Lost finishes. The new season doesn't disappoint; there are plenty (and almost, perhaps, too many), callbacks to previous seasons and episodes. Some are in jokes, some aren't. I'm going to miss the hell out of this show when it is over.

But the ending of the second episode. Holy shiiiiiiiiit. We finished watching and the 5 of us (Roxy, John, Mike, Kurt and I) seem to be in agreement with what is happening, but the logic, the turn made to head in the direction that it does…It confounds me. I can't wait to see where it goes but man oh man.

Oh and if you aren't watching this show, you're a fool. Get season 1 and get to it.

* Mainly because the words "best" and "show" are too loosely defined — how does one factor in genres, years on air, length of the episodes and other fluctuations? It doesn't really matter.

American Gladiators:
Another return, this one of a show around 15 years old. It doesn't appear to have changed one drop from then, which might be a blessing or it might be a curse. This is, hands down, the most homo-erotic show I have seen in years. Maybe ever.

This is Hellga:

She is one of the new female gladiators.

Then there is Titan, who spent both episodes flexing and looking so gay I really wasn't sure what I was watching:

Finally, there is Wolf, who is this feral man-beast. Scary is my only adjective for him:

It is one tomorrow night again; if you need brainless TV that both destroys your faith in humanity while allowing you to laugh at meathead idiots — this is the show for you. I do wonder what the gladiators did before getting on TV. What their day job is. I can't fathom.

4 great hours of TV at opposite ends of the spectrum. And, sadly, perhaps, both are highly recommended.

you might ask yourself, tripp, why post this? i am asking myself the same thing. of course, im asking why i watched these as well.

i think i feel sick.
i must not be used to watching legs bend in strange places the wrong way.

sports illustrated's most grusome/bizarre injuries
(number 7 on the list doesn't work, but here is a different link for it.)

excuse me while i go puke.