"That Kangaroo Stole My Ball!"

Let's get this out of the way right now, because this entire post is based on this simple premise: I HATE GOLF.

I hate everything about it. I hate lugging a pile of metal around in the hot sun on a summer day. I hate trying to whack some stupid white ball into a hole an inordinate distance away. I hate the macho attitude that I associate with roaming bands of male golfers. I hate the clothes. I hate the shoes. I hate that the sport represents a ridiculous economic divide in that the equipment required and fees to play are cost prohibitive to a large segment of the population. I hate country clubs which are still surviving relics of an era of elitism that is better off taken out behind the barn and shot dead forever.

Most of all though, I hate that I suck so badly at it.

I am man enough to admit that at least some of the above reasons are possibly unfair. Yes, I know there are public courses out there that are reasonably affordable. Yes, I know you can pick up used clubs at a decent price. Yes, I know you can rent a golf cart.

But the fact remains that golfing is my absolute least favorite activity. It is pure torture. There are probably some things that are worse than golf, but I haven't personally experienced them. If there is an afterlife, I am almost certainly going to Hell, and it will be 18 holes for an eternity of Saturday afternoons in the middle of July.

Before I get to why I bring this up, let me tell you a story...

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Several years ago, my fiance and I were planning a trip to Illinois. I would be meeting her parents for the first time, so I was a little bit nervous and wanted to make a good impression.

At the time I was living in an apartment with two other fellas. We had a balcony, which I enjoyed stepping out on for the occasional smoke or to relax on one of the chairs we had out there.

Unfortunately, shortly before we were going to be leaving for Illinois, I stepped outside and sat down on one of the chairs as usual. Little did I know there was a hornet's nest underneath, and the movement angered up their blood. I was attacked by the raging swarm and stung over a dozen times. A lot of attention was paid to my left foot, which was apparently perceived as a major threat by the marauding beasts.

It didn't take long for my foot to start swelling. Just in time for the 14 hour drive! My foot swelled up to such a size that I had some serious difficulty wedging my shoe on.

The pain and swelling got so bad that about 10 hours into the long drive, I had to take my shoe off in the car. My foot was so big that my toes resembled protozoa an amoeba might use for locomotion more than real human digits. It was bursting with fruit flavor.

The worst was yet to come though, as my fiance's family had planned a golf outing during my visit.

Let me reiterate: I am absolutely terrible at golf. I'm not so obtuse as to discount that my unbelievable incompetence at this game contributes to my terrible perceptions of the sport, but the fact remains: I HATE THIS GAME.

My performance that day wasn't just a mockery of the game of golf, it was a mockery of athletics and sporting events everywhere across the world. I don't think I hit a ball more than 20 yards at any point, and there are baseball players in the minor leagues that could hit a Mariano Rivera cutter with more regularity than I made contact with a stationary golf ball on this particular day.

I lamely offered up the excuse that my foot hurt. This was a bad idea. The tough, Midwestern MAN'S men who were already glancing at my northeastern ways with suspicion began to regard me with genuine distaste. My fiance at one point asked one of them if they could help me with my swing, to which he replied:

"I don't even know where to begin with that mess."

Eventually the crushing shame led me to give up. It was obvious that my pathetic attempts to keep pace were just holding back the game, as I had to take somewhere between 5 and 400 shots for every single shot for the other members of the group. My foot really did hurt, but it was nothing compared to the weight of my failure crushing down upon my soul.

I like to pretend that the rest of the visit went reasonably well, and that I have since earned the respect (or at least somewhat lessened the loathing) of my fiance's family.

But I know, deep down, that every time they look at me they see that sissy programmer from the northeast who doesn't know how to handle a club and ended up with a sunburn as red as Hester Prynne's own mark of shame.

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Last night I was nice and relaxed. I was watching baseball on TV and enjoying a drink. Everything was good... a great end to a long day.

Then my fiance turned to me and said: "By the way, don't forget we've got the bridal shower coming up in July in Illinois."

I nodded. No problem, I thought. I'll hang out with the menfolk and throw back a few.

"Also, you're going golfing with the boys."

I began sobbing.

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Author's Note: If you didn't immediately recognize it, the title of this post is a quote from Caddyshack, which is probably one of the only good things ever to be produced by this damn sport.

Also, if anybody knows of a good place to get emergency golfing lessons in the Wilmington/Philadelphia area... HELP.

Pansies Paralyzed by Snow Army

I greatly fear the day when invading forces allied against the United States land on the shores of the northeast.

If they're smart, they will replace all guns, missiles, cannons, and trebuchets with giant snow machines.

It would start with word that the Snow Army was approaching. Instead of preparing their defenses, people would all drive simultaneously to the grocery store for bottled water and canned goods. Thousands would die fighting for the last can of Spam. Thousands more would be killed in the subsequent car crashes and traffic jams.

Those traffic jams would be so bad that some people would actually still be in them when the Snow Army landed. Having squandered the chance to muster a response, people would begin calling out of work and attempt to wait it out in their homes. The call to arms would go out, but everyone would have excuses to avoid reporting for duty.

"They don't plow my street in the neighborhood I live in."
"My house is near a hill."
"By the time I get there, I'd have to turn around and come back home."
"I'm not driving out there with those morons."
"I'm a huge pansy."

You get the picture. Left with no defense, the Snow Army would roll over everything in its path. The angry inch of powdered death would leave nothing untouched. Governments would fail to respond at every level, elected officials having already chosen an excuse from the list above.

It didn't used to be this way. George Washington and his army spent a brutal winter at Valley Forge, and they didn't call in sick. They used the time to get their asses out there and retrain.

Damned if I was going to dishonor their memory.

This morning I walked out at quarter to 7 in the morning. My car was covered with an inch of pure ice. I couldn't get the door open.

Instead of picking one of the excuses above, I gave the car a few swift kicks. That knocked enough of the ice off to get the door open. I started the car, got out the scraper, and got to work.

Turned out I was better off wielding the scraper at first like a baseball bat to crack the ice. I used this tactic for awhile before using old fashioned scraping techniques. In the process I sliced open my finger.

No time to deal with the blood. The freezing rain and snow were still falling and covering the work I had done so far. I kept at it, and eventually enough space had been cleared on the windshield to see out.

Tossing the scraper back in the car, I went upstairs to my apartment to get a bandage for my finger when I noticed I had gotten blood all over my shirt.

That's when the power went out. Undaunted, I went back to the car. Unfortunately, the 2 minutes I had spent not scraping ice had resulted in the car door freezing shut again. I gave it a tug... and pulled off the handle.

Now my keys were trapped in the car, but I used a credit card to pry open the tiniest bit of plastic left on what used to be my door handle. This time I left the door open as I retrieved the scraper and got the freshest coat of ice off.

I eventually made it in to work to a half empty office and emails from friends and coworkers who were staying home.

When it snows, you can choose to be a huge pansy. That's your right as an American. That's a choice that you live with.

But just remember that you are dishonoring the proud history of this country.

And that you suck.

The New Mob Rule

One of the impressive things about the current age of technology we're in is how quickly information can get around.

One of the even more impressive things is how quickly misinformation can get around.

Let's look at examples of both.

First, let's take a look at an article on Digg today. For those of you who don't know, digg is an extremely popular "social bookmarking" site. People can submit stories and also vote for (or "digg") other stories that they find interesting. An algorithm on the site determines which are the most popular (I assume via some function of how quickly an article receives diggs and the number of those diggs, but I don't know the details) and puts them on the "front page". When an article makes the front page, the site in question gets absolutely hammered with visitors, because a lot of casual users like myself only browse the front page to visit interesting things.

Today featured an article about a small town Snohomish. The citizens of Snohomish love their high school football team. Even more, they love the tradition of firing off their cannon before football games and after touchdowns.

Well, unfortunately a student got badly hurt by the cannon some time ago. A member of the high school ROTC, the student was part of the team that fired off the cannon, and it exploded, almost taking off his leg. At one point it looked like they were going to have to amputate his leg entirely.

Based on the article, it looks like the kid didn't get a lot of sympathy from the town. In fact, he actually got threats.

It would appear that, afraid they might lose the tradition of firing off the cannon due to safety concerns, the town went a little nuts. Some folks threatened to "blow off his other leg", and a collection to help pay the steep medical bills (including putting a titanium rod in his injured leg) yielded a sum of $200, nearly all of that coming from other schools.

Enter digg. Once the article got on the front page, the enterprising commentors discovered the school's football website. An innocent poll there asks visitors how many games they plan to attend.

So far over 100,000 (and rising fast) have replied "none".

Will any of this do any good? Who knows. Is the article biased? Probably. I would've liked to have seen more reaction from kids in his class.

But is it funny to see that many people (along with, I'm sure, more than a couple of scripts doing the voting) visit a little homegrown school website and express their displeasure through a pointless poll? Yes.

Second, let's talk about internet hoaxes. If you have an email account (that should include one or two of you), you know that people love to circulate chain letters containing erroneous information. These may include a gent from Nigeria claiming he wants to send you money. These may include people encouraging you to buy a junk stock.

They also may include completely falsified rewritings of history for the purpose of a political agenda. An example of this would be the Oliver North "testimony" which claims that Ollie identified Osama Bin Laden as "the most evil person alive".

Osama Bin Laden is evil. I'm not disputing that. But what is easily disputable is the testimony. The blasted thing was circulated so much that the US Senate even thought to include a refutation of the entire thing on their website.

But that's the internet for you. Perhaps for better or worse, the internet allows us to see "news" now already filtered through the lenses we prefer. There are plenty of bloggers and "news" websites out there that will tailor to your political views, whatever they may be. That's nice because it is often pleasant to read things that we already agree with.

But it's a heck of a lot more challenging... and more important... to read points of view we don't agree with. And as more and more people turn to these alternative news sources (and for the love of all that is holy, chain emails should never be considered "news"), the responsibility falls on us to do our fact checking.

Frankly, that's not something at which people have proven particularly proficient.

Update: It appears the poll has been taken down. Too bad, I would've liked to see just how high the count got.

Update 2: It should be noted that Fark.com was on this story first. Credit where credit is due.