- Most things are arbitrary. Pro sports doubly so. How ridiculous is it to have an event in which a team represents your entire city, and you get all psyched up about it, then you feel great if they win and bad if they lose? Why do people cheer? If the team wins, good for them; if they lose, whatever. Your cheering won’t change the outcome at all. Not to mention, have you been to a sporting event recently? It is the most Pavlovian thing in my usual experience:

“Fans! Get up on your feet and make some noise, because we’ve got some hot DiGiorno pizzas, and we’re giving them out to the loudest fans!” I swear, they could give out loaves of bread. Heads of cabbage. Bananas. What better to easily stimulate people than tasty food?
“Turn your attention to center court, where you will now be entertained by this team of breakdancers!” Pander to me, please! I can’t go a couple minutes without some lame throwaway entertainment!
“It’s time for the Taco Bell ball toss!” I’m not even making this up… they throw these worthless little plastic balls into the crowd, and people scramble for them.
or the usual
“It’s time to get loud!” “De-fense!” BOOM BOOM “De-fense!” BOOM BOOM… Make noise, because we tell you to! You have to support the home team!
At this last game I went to, they gave us towels, and they kept putting a sign on the scoreboard that said “Whirly-bird” which meant that you’re supposed to wave the towel around. You know, like a Terrible Towel, except they’re prompting you.

All I’m saying is, most of the typical brainwashy dystopias have this sort of event somewhere ingrained in their society, and it really helps with their mind control schemes… let’s hope The Pro Sports People never use it for evil.

- Mowing the lawn is a little bit of an atrocity. “Let’s shape nature to our own selfish desires.” Those needs include pushing a gas-spewing motor across it every week in order to prevent any sort of organic growth pattern. And inventing another chore that a lot of people hate to do. And maybe some artificial fertilizers would help. The best is when you bag up and throw away the grass that you pick up.

I’m sorry, that last paragraph was very snide. I apologize for the sarcastic tone. My point is that it’s kind of artificial to want a very green lawn. Oh dear, I’m becoming a hippie again. Good grief, I better stop writing now.

Comments:

yincrash - May 1, 2006

i mowed my lawn today.
i have an electric mower. (i plug it in to an outside wall socket)

i wouldn’t mow the lawn if i didn’t have to. i kind of have to because it brings the property value down. if my lawn was “ugly” the neightbors would yell at me. i don’t want the neighbors to yell at me.

people need control over something. sometimes landscaping is just a form of control.