Invisible Balls

Ladies and Gentlemen, I just saw this music video (posted below) and I must confess, I was astounded.


Not only is the song fun and catchy, but it features invisible basketballs! How amazing is that? Science has gotten to the point where we can safely and effectively augment invisibility technology onto an object whose purpose is to be thrown around and slammed repeatedly against the floor. That, my friends, is one sturdy cloaking device.

The question is why would we go to so much trouble to make invisible something that is both heavily abused and needs to be seen. Some would argue that it's simply experimentation in an effort to create a more sturdy invisibility field generator, presumably to survive the rigors of war. I doubt it thought. Clearly, the purpose behind the innovation was to make basketballs invisible, though it would make the sport ridiculously difficult. After all, could you imagine playing a sport with a ball you couldn't see?

I believe this difficulty is the very purpose sought. The invisible basketball was designed to hinder score inflation. Here in America, we're trying to put on a new face to the world. One that says, "Honestly, we really can do things your way. Honest!" The some of the most popular sports in the world are Soccer, Hockey (field and ice), Volleyball, Baseball, and Tennis. Let's look at the average scores, shall we?

• Soccer teams average average one to two points per game depending on ability. This is the world's favorite sport.
  
• Hockey teams average two to three points per game depending on ability.
  
• Baseball teams average only five points per game.
• Tennis players may seem to have high scores (forty for the winner), but really, that's just four successful hits.
• Volleyball is played in three rounds. Rounds end at no more than 25 points. That's a lot of points in comparison to these other international sports.
• Basketball teams average about 65 points per game.

Making the ball invisible would complicate the game. Imagine shooting an invisible ball. Try making a pass to another player when you can't see the ball. And don't even get me started on rebounds. Invisible basketballs reduce scores to numbers more in line with the rest of the sporting world.

You have been informed.

Your secrets have been compromised.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I slept terribly and dreamt of 3-d glasses. I know there were 3-d commercials during last night's "super bowl." I did not watch them. Because I did not watch the "super bowl." For previously discussed reasons. And yet, I dreamt about getting those darn red and blue glasses. I think NBC and Sobe have teamed up to ensure that I be advertised to no matter what. I didn't watch their silly commercials for their silly 3-d episode of Chuck. Instead, I watched five hours of buildup to them during five hours of obnoxious "Super Bowl" pre-show at work on screens whose size is measured in feet rather than inches. Double digit feet. NBC wanted to make sure I saw those commercials. They provided me with huge TVs they hoped I couldn't resist. They forced me to work during all of the pre-show hype for the commercials. They even convinced my boss to make me stay late for no good reason in hopes I'd see their silly 3-d commercials. Still, I resisted. I made my escape shortly before "The Big Game" started. I thwarted their attempts, and so they used dream-control technology to make me dream of their gimmick. 

Why, though, is what I want to know. Let's see, shall we> The commercials were for Sobe (with assistance from the movie Monsters versus Aliens) and for Chuck. I doubt very much that Sobe was part of the message. That bit was just for the money. It is a commercial after all. That leaves us with a trailer for a movie about monsters versus aliens and an ad for a show about a guy whose brain is accidentally the unwitting recipient of all of our nations most closely guarded secrets. All in 3-d. 

The purpose of 3-d is, of course, to make things appear as though they are really present. The purpose then is to either A) convince me that something typically assumed fake is real, or b) convince me that something typically considered real is fake. We have a trailer about monsters versus aliens, both of which are generally perceived to be not real. Clearly, this is meant to tell us that the message is meant to be interpreted as "Fake is really real." 

That leaves one final part to the message. Chuck is the only remaining piece of the message to fit into this puzzle. This show tells the story of a man whose brain somehow downloads all of the CIA's databases. Sure, it broadcasts as an actiony sitcom. I think, however, that NBC wanted me to get the message that the show is actually a true story. There really is a man out there carrying all of our most closely guarded secrets in his electronics store brain. 

Hmmm... but we all know that aliens really are real and the CIA is covering it all up. So maybe I was supposed to interpret that the other way. Hmmm... but that would mean monsters are real. And the CIA knows it! And a guy had this knowledge dumped into his frontal lobe like so much wrapping paper at the city dump the day after Christmas. Except, you know, the CIA files are more useful and more likely to get you hunted down and killed for retrieving. 

NBC invaded (and advertised in) my dreams to tell me that there is a man out there whose brain has been filled with CIA secrets, including those pertaining to the existence of both aliens AND monsters (and evidently, their impending war, for which we should all prepare. Note: Zombies are monsters and I've been warning about the zombies coming for years. Which means, the aliens might save us from them, unless of course Monsters versus Aliens is like Aliens versus Predators, in which case we all lose). NBC, thank you for facilitating my search for the truth, even if you did have to advertise in my dream to do it. I must find this super knowledgeable man and get those secrets the CIA is hiding so... hidingly.

You have been informed.

The Un-Super Stadium Game

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm all for truth in advertising. That's why I'm boycotting the Super Bowl. I see no super powers. So no super. Bowl, perhaps. No. No bowls. There's a stadium, which I suppose is bowl shaped, but come on, that's no bowl. It's a stadium. Is it the trophy that is the bowl> No, hardly. That's a big glass football. No Super. No Bowl. Hmmm. 

Another name for this particular game is of course, "The Big Game." I'll let you have game, sure, but it's no bigger than any other game. The quarters are not longer. The players are no taller. Those are just normal sized football players throwing a normal sized football on a normal sized field for the normal amount of time. So what's big about it> We could call it the Last Game, because it is. Well, kinda. It's not the last game of the year, obviously, because the sport will pick up again in the fall. Which rules out Ultimate as well, because Ultimate just means "last." The Final Game of the Season is too wordy. No one feels like calling it the Championship Game, and really, they can hardly call it the National Championship because they didn't take on every team in the nation. College teams don't get to compete against these guys. Peewee league teams don't compete against these guys. Sure hypothetically we can assume that an NFL team will beat a peewee team, but then, all of the "experts" also never would have guessed the Cardinals would win, so lets not sell those ten year olds short, shall we> They're ten. They're short enough already. Further, we can't call it the Professional National Championship, because there are minor league teams. They get paid, just not as much.

What can we do with this> What can we call it> The Final Game Until It Starts Again In Eight Months Played by Men Paid More Than (however much the minimum is) Which Determines Not Necessarily Who Is Best, But Rather Who Won the Right Games At the Right Time> That's even wordier than The Final Game of the Season. 

So I boycott it. They say that the mind can't comprehend something it can't label, something it can't name. If I can't name one measly game, there's no way I can even begin to understand why crossing the goal line is six points, unless you do it after you've just crossed the goal line, in which case, it's only worth one third of the points, or why kicking a field goal is worth three points unless you do it after crossing said goal line, but only if you did so for the six points (and not the two), in which case it's worth only one, which is once again one third. And we're surprised when football players fail math in high school... I can't hope to understand why we get the biggest, strongest, most aggressive men we can find, and then tell them not to be too aggressive. We tell them to be tough, and then we put more padding on them than just about any other sport. I'll never understand football until I can come up with a name for the "Super Bowl."

You have been informed.