Football Counter-Programming 2016--Week 7

Howdy everybody. Welcome back to another week of non-football Facebook distractions.

We live in a world of memes. You know what they are, right? Memes are like digital idioms--short phrases or pictures that represent bigger thoughts or points of view. They are usually pretty nonsensical and are meant either to make you laugh or to state your point of view about a topic. Things that have gone viral are memes.

For instance, all this past week, Kenneth Bone and his red sweater was a meme. At least until The New York Times decided to rip him a new one.

My first meme was All Your Base Are Belong To Us. I had recently started working at McGraw-Hill and was spending a lot more time in my life starting at computer screens. And I wish I could remember who pointed me to it. But I was intrigued by the bizarre juxtaposition of the edited imagery, the song, and the tenuous connection to a simple video game.

But I moved on with my life and didn't dive down the rabbit hole. I had young children and a job to cultivate. But the Internet was only getting bigger and more diverse and all of my friends were staring at computer screens all day long as well. So, the one that next caught our collective attention was Hopkin Green Frog.

Did you ever encounter Hopkin? Do you think Terry ever quit looking for Hopkin? I want to think that he did Find His Frog. (And I do wonder if he was found on the moon.)

Hopkin Green also started with an innocuous handmade sign that blew up into something far different and much more widespread. And that is what memes do. As a (once college-trained) amateur cultural anthropologist, I guess I am drawn to the weird propagation of the ideas. I like to see where they come from and where they are going and how people twist the ideas into new shaped and directions. It's a fun diversion.

So, enough set up. Let's get to today's focal point . . .the SNL Digital Short "Dear Sister" with the haunting soundtrack.



When I was first shown this by one of my kids, I laughed at the absurdity of it. But I didn't read any descriptions about it at the time and moved on. But I learned from my girls that it had become a meme to their friends. They would mimic the bizarre song that plays over and over again during moments of drama and tension amongst their friend groups. And I thought that was funny.

Then, last week, I read this piece on The Ringer about "Hide and Seeking" and everything fell into place. (You really should click on the link in the previous sentence and read that article.) I was thrilled to learn that the "Dear Sister" digital short was directly making fun of a scene in the old FOX network show, The O.C. (a show that I had never watched).

And I was so, SO happy! I finally had the context I wanted about where this weird SNL skit had come from. And I could connect all the dots and feel a renewed excitement in some stupid thing that made me laugh.

What bits of excitement and revelation did you experience this week? Feel free to share your news in the comments.

And, until next week, remember . . . no one cares if your alma mater's linebacker fumbled the ball while trying to return a turnover for a touchdown in last week's conference showdown. You still have to get up and go to work on Monday no matter what.

Football Counter-Programming 2016--Week 6

Credit: . . . the Internet! (Sorry, I didn't locate the person who created this.)

This past Saturday, we hopped in the car and drove down closer to Cincinnati to visit the Ohio Renaissance Festival. And while it did not occur to me during the 1 hour and 10 minute drive down to the festival site, a really fun game that you can play at such events is a scavenger hunt where you look for certain typs of people.

This diversion dawned on me just as we entered the gates after scanning our tickets, when I got a look at the people walking through the trails of Ye Olde Festival. (And the main reason that I wish I had thought of it sooner is that creating the list would have helped pass the time during the drive south. But, then again, I think the specificity of the list was improved by the witnessing provided during walking around the Festival grounds.)

Anyway . . . once I had the idea, I told it to Grace, who appreciates a quality idea when it is in front of her. She took it and built out almost all of these Scavenger Hunt items.

So, the next time YOU are at the Ohio Renaissance Festival, print out this list and see how many of these fun items you can discover around you.

Renaissance Festival Scavenger Hunt

1. Dread Pirate Robertts
2. Elf ears
3. Guy in a kilt
4. Flower crown in someone's hair
5. Overweight man eating Turkey legge
6. Guy with real parrot on shoulder
7. Girl with purple hair
8. People dressed exclusively in black
9. Inappropriate Harry Potter outfit
10. Dude in full armor
11. Game of Thrones cosplay
12. Legend of Zelda cosplay
13. Excessive display of cleavage
14. People with way-too-tiny hats
15. Lord of the Rings cosplay (+20 if you find someone dressed as Gollum)
16. Feathered cap (think Robin Hood)
17. Wizard (+5  if they have a big staff and  +20 if they have a natural beard)
18. Fake fur
19. Bow and Arrow
20. Sword
21. Someone dressed as the Pope
22. Someone carrying a scythe
23. Men on horseback
24. Men wearing traditional women's clothing
25. Men with a wheelbarrow
26. Doctor Who cosplay
27. Ninja? (Yeah, that's right. ninja!)
28. Captain Jack Sparrow outfit (with +2 if he walks like he's drunk)
29. Fairy wings
30. Sword swallower
31. Fire eater
32. Bagpiper
33. Person wearing a weird animal tail attached to clothing
34. Person without a shirt
35. +5 if you interacted with Ren Fair "cast member"

I thought Grace did a great job putting this together. Feel free to use it. (The Ohio Ren Fair is still open through almost all of October!)

And, here are a few pictures of my kids having fun.

And, in the end . . . remember . . . no one cares if your team screwed up defending that Hail Mary pass that improbably made them lose the game. {Because millions of people once died from bubonic plague. Let's hold on to some perspective, okay?) See you next week!

Football Counter-Programming 2016--Week 5

Credit: nocoastbias.com

Every week I heroically take on the challenge of diverting the sheeple from the hegemony of college football. I don't really know if I am making any headway or not. But it gives me an excuse to keep adding quality content to this blog, so I see no reason to stop.

The only times I do consider stopping is when I sit in front of the blank screen and face the challenge of what is worth writing about.

Some "popular" blogs have a rabid army of followers who want nothing more than to suggest topics for future inclusion. But WWYG?! is slightly less popular than those--whichever ones you are thinking about.

So, my dilemma remains.

***

How do people sit down and create? I know it is anything but easy to take an idea from nothing and work it through into something that is finished and ready for others to enjoy. How much time and effort must be devoted to the challenge of writing a short story, a novel, whatever?

I have a running joke with my kids that when something fun happens, I comment "That will be chapter [whatever random number I choose] in my Young Adult novel." But promised novel will never appear, no manuscript will ever be written, no time will be spent even trying to write it. And the reason is simple. And if you have spent time reading WWYG?! over the years, you've already heard the answer.

I'm laaaaaazy.

My desire to create is very short--if it exists at all. I am much happier consuming the fruits of other people's creative labor--either in book, blog, or media formats. I was to be a passive observer of things, not the tireless, driven maker of something. If given a choice between doing or not doing . . . I guess I'm a non-doer.

Internally, I admit that makes me sad. Shouldn't I try hard to be the best possible version of me that I can be? Isn't it a waste of my life advantages to simply flow along through this world without trying to increase the size of my ripples?

(I said ripples.)

Or is that all delusional grandstanding that exists only in my head--an imagined estimation of my own potential that has no basis in anything but my imagination? (Especially since I've never given much of any indication that I am capable of anything beyond some random blog posts whenever I can be bothered to sit down in front of a computer for ten minutes.)

*** Random Thoughts Based on Perusing my Twitter Feed ***

1. Quick. Can you name a U.S. president who chose a dog instead of a cat? Or is it because cats don't go outside that I can't think of anyone?

2. Some day, when I get to visit New York City, I'll go to Carnegie Deli. And when I do it, I will be glad that I experienced it, but also slightly embarrassed that I have chosen such a stereotypical tourist experience.

*** Random Thought NOT Based on Perusing My Twitter Feed.***

(What no one will ever tell Apple Inc. . . . is that parents use FaceTime 100 percent of the time to call their teenagers down from their rooms for dinner and 0 percent of the time to connect with grandparents.)

So . . . there it is for another week.
And remember . . . no one cares if your defensive coordinator violated recruiting rules in the off-season.

See you next weekend!

Football Counter-Programming 2016--Bye week

Credit: whywontyougrow.com

During every football season, there is a week with no game. It's called a bye week.

Since I am travelling this weekend, this is going to be my bye week.

And wouldn't you know it ? When I went looking for an image to illustrate this post, Google images served up something that I created and used just two years ago!

I'm really making a difference in this world.

So, that's it for this week. Remember . . . no one cares--well, you can make up the rest. It's my bye week.

Football Counter-Programming 2016--Week 3

Credit: youthservicesslc.files.wordpress.com

Have I talked about the concept of "birthday time" yet on the blog?

I seem to remember tweeting a screen shot illustrating the idea once, but I don't know if I actually explained what it meant.

Can you guess?

It's pretty simple really . . . you convert what month and day you were born into corresponding hours and minutes. That is your "birthday time." For example, I was born on October 17. So, my birthday time is 10:17.

What is the value of this fact? (Or maybe it should be called a concept since it isn't any sort of recognized thing . . . but merely a quirk that I have--one that I would like to turn into a more recognized thing.)

Andbutso . . . the value of knowing this? Truly there isn't much--obviously, or I guess more people would do something with it and there would be lines of greeting cards centered around it or some other relevant commercialization of it.

No, it's just something I started doing mentally in my head and I taught my children to pay attention to it. For no other reason that it makes me momentarily happy to look at a clock when it randomly indicated 10:17 and think silently to myself "Hey, it's birthday time."

Maybe that makes me monstrously self-centered? Or maybe it just makes garden variety narcissistic. Or maybe it means nothing at all. But I know that I like it when I hear my children from across the room acknowledge "Birthday Time!" when the happen to notice it on the clock. Not that they always do so . . . but it makes my heart beat a bit whenever it does happen.

We all want to make a difference in some way, I guess. To prove that we existed and that our lives were not just a flash in a long string of others, with no lasting consequence. Maybe this is mine?

So . . . anyway . . . maybe twenty years from now when you feel obligated to send Hallmark Greeting Cards twice-daily text messages to people to celebrate their Birthday Time, you can thank me for the obligation.

And remember--no one cares if your college's field goal kicker great up in Melbourne and didn't know who David Hasselhoff was until last year. He still can't reliably hit a 40 yard field goal when the wind is blowing left-to-right.