Words Only Used in the World of Sports

You never hear, read or say them except when you're watching sports. It's jargon used by athlete wanna-bes, has-beens and junior varsity journalists who sit inside our tv screens. You may or may not recognize the words I'm talking about. Once I write down a few, I think you'll agree.

I actually can't think of all of them right now, but I intend to add to this list. If someone ever stumbles across this blog and actually reads it and has something to add or even disagree on, I'll submit changes to it.

Not all of these words annoy me, I just find it odd and a little cliche-ish for them never to use it in real life, but when talking on tv about sports, their vocabulary suddenly increases. It's almost like talking to someone who's really smart and is speaking way over your head. You nod your head in conversation but run to google when you get home to crack the code of their message.

It's almost as if these commentators feel like these words somehow legitimize their takes and validates what they're saying. It doesn't. Actually, makes them sound silly to me. And I'd even bet they don't even know what the words mean half the time. They just remember the context in which they're usually said and they parrot them back when it sounds right. Heck, I don't even know what they mean. Basically, I get the gist of what they're saying and move on.

Enough of my writing. Here's the very very short list as of now. I thought of two today. Actually, I heard one on the radio and the other is one I despise. If you think I'm wrong and you actually hear or use these words used more than two times a year outside of sports, I'd love to hear about it.

1. Ill-advised
2. Perennial

EDIT: So I may be halfway wrong on these so far. I googled news with these words, and this is what I found:

(1) http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=ill-advised&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&sa=N&start=0
So maybe I need to read more?

(2) http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=perennial&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&sa=N&start=0
Notice the word is almost exclusively used for sports or botany. How they stole this one I don't know.

What a typical American Eats

The main events of the last ten mintues for me: Walk in the door from work, check my mail, grab a snack to eat, sit on the couch.

Then I thought to myself, "I wonder what a typical meal is for an Italian."

I think the reason I thought that was because I was wanting variety in my meals. Why I thought that, I don't know. But I figured that if I knew a handful of real typical meals from different cultures around the world, I'd always have something different and interesting for each meal.

The problem is finding that information. An American Google search will bring results, but they'll be produced by an American born Italian, and most likely it won't be authentic in some way. I could be wrong.

But take my experience with a gyro for example. In Greece they put french fries inside the sandwich. Here they put the fries on the side.

I'm not a full believer in the thought that only natives can make their own food well. Non-natives can too, it's just that in the process of transferring information, something was lost, misinterpreted or wrongly substituted. Take my gyro example again. In the simplest way, we Americans could put the fries in the sandwhich. Simple as that. (Although I won't get into other ways we probably make it wrong. Well...briefly; they soak the bread in olive oil, and everytime I ordered one they asked me if I wanted pork or chicken, not lamb.)

So anyway. I want to be a source of information. I am going to share my meals in hope that some Euro, Asian or African will search the words, "typical american cuisine," and find my blog. While I'm only a "typical" American in the sense that I'm American, I know that my next door neighbor might have completely different eating habits. But hey, if we all do this, we can help transcend the cutlture of food and bring everyone on this planet to a happy tummy! K, not really.

Anyway, here it goes.

Breakfast: Whisked two eggs. Tore a slice of ham into pieces and mixed it with the eggs. Scrambled the eggs and ham. Toasted an english muffin. Used half a slice of american cheese to put inside the sandwich. Drank a glass of milk.

Lunch: Ate quesadillas. Grilled chicken. Cut the chicken into slices. Placed chicken slices onto a corn tortilla. Sprinkled mozarella cheese on top. Put another tortilla on top. Put on a frying pan until cheese was melted.

Dinner: Ate "Weta's Sphagetti." Boil pasta. Simmer tomatoe sauce. Add pasta to sauce. Add chopped onion. Enjoy. Oh yeah, ate freshed baby leaf spinach with homemade ranch dressing.

My Return and the 2008 NBA MVP & NCAA Player of the Year rants

This is my first posting in what seems like forever. I did take a hiatus to blog on myspace, but this is my first back on blogger. I skimmed through former posts and realized just how horrible they were. I'm not sure if I just didn't proof read or what, but they were pretty bad. Hopefully I won't make that same mistake again, although I wouldn't be surprised if I did. My primary goal is to regurgitate ideas, and practice my writing second. But I do understand those mistakes can be a distraction, so we'll see.

2008 NBA MVP Pick
The season is winding down and talking heads are making their bold and thoughtless predictions for who deserves to win the League's most valuable player award. I want to first admit that I haven't followed the NBA too closely this year. Our satellite package doesn't include the channel that carries the Rockets home games and honestly, I've just found more important things to do than watch sports 24/7. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Most media have the candidates down to Kobe and Chris Paul, with Garnett and Lebron just outside the conversation. I'm fine with that. Lebron is great, there's no doubt. What hurts him is the eastern conference and his teams record. Garnett has less than stellar numbers. People point to the change in culture and attitude he's brought to the Celtics to support his case, but I don't think his numbers are big enough and unfairly, he has received too much help in accumulating wins with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce as sidekicks.

So I too have Kobe and Paul in my final ballot. I really cannot say anything bad about Kobe. His numbers are great, and he's brought what he thought was going to be a lottery bound team to a top team in the tough Western Conference. He should receive much credit for that. But I can't help but pick Chris Paul. The guy has great numbers and is a true leader. What rattles my brain most about the guy is that he could dominate even more than he does now. I confess that this pick may be based off one game. It was against the Rockets during the winning streak. The Rox were dominating, but Paul kept them in the game with amazing shot after shot and pass after pass. Every decision he made was the right one, and he executed each one flawlessly. It was simply sick. Each pass was on the money and made shots were nothing but net, every time. I couldn't believe my eyes the guy was so amazing. He was so good and plays with such class, that you find yourself cheering for the guy even when he's playing against your team. Beware, this is not a sentimental pick, nor is it some anti-Kobe pick either. I've observed Paul's game and I love to watch Kobe as well. It's just that Paul has done so much to put his team in first place. That's right, first place. The New Orleans Hornets. Heard of 'em?

If he continues to play like this in the playoffs, he will become one of the greatest PG to ever play the game, if not THE greatest.

2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Player of the Year
Tyler Hansbrough has snagged every single Player of the Year award this year. What a joke, kind of. I respect him and will even admit he's a very good player. But he's not even close to being the best player in Division I basketball. Michael Beasley is. Hansbrough won the award not because he was the best player, but because he was a great hustler. Hustling should not determine who the best player is. Performance should. Beasley outperformed everyone this year, no question. I'm not sure if it's fair to compare two different seasons, but how can Durant win it last year with lesser stats and then Beasley lose it this year? Not only did Beasley have better numbers than Durant, this UT fan believes he's better than him too.

I probably wouldn't have even brought this subject up, but I have no idea how Hansbrough swept all the awards away. Durant didn't go any further in the tourny than Beasley did. Beasley had way less to work with in terms of teammates, hurting any chance of making a deep run.

Not to take away from the great season Tyler had, but I just felt like someone needed to say that Michael got the shaft. Here's to Beasley haven't a brilliant NBA career.