happy xmas n shit
christmas day. all is quiet. sort of wish i was with my family just to see my nieces tearing open all kinds of cool toys only to play with the discarded wrapping paper. that's what i'd do. wrapping paper makes cooler sounds.
tried to play halo with hubby. um, no. i don't like the way the split screen is set up, and it moves like resident evil. which way am i facing? what side is the door on? what the fuck? tried to play mech assult, but we tried two different missions and could find no enemies to kill. whatever. we mostly played DOA. those pretty little red headed ninja boys need to show some skin to keep up with the bouncy girls in tight leather outfits, if you can call anything they wear clothing. unfortunately, on the xbox, you have to have a booster disk or subscribe to the online thing to unlock extra costumes for the characters.
a note on sports. i saw a piece on espn this morning about joe jurivicis, receiver for the tampa bay bucs. in january, he and his wife had their first child. in march, that child died from a rare and uncurable disease that was severely hindering his lung development. i watched this big man, a football player, a tough guy, shed tears as he told the reporter about the one time shortly before he died that the baby opened his eyes. joe and his wife are now very involved in the march of dimes and other such charities.
and then they talked about the shit that went down with baylor university's basketball program that culminated in a young man being murdered by his teammate. and i thought about how interesting sports is not just for the drama and passion of the games but for everything else. it's the best and worst of humanity with easy access. and i think that's why so many people are drawn to sports. it's david robinson versus kobe bryant, good versus evil, the most basic struggle of all, the underlying theme of just about every story ever told. it's the orginal reality tv. who needs survivor when bobby knight just opened his mouth again?!?! sports, more so than anything else in this country, gives us heroes and villians we can follow every step they take. if we have a television, a radio, a computer, we are not without sports. and i wonder how those little cross sections of life reflect the bigger picture. and i wonder how many of the men and women in those cross sections realize the weight of what they do, not just in their sport but in life. if the media attention on lebron james, for instance, had not been so intensive, would he have opted for the nba? probably not. and what message does that send with either decision? of course, there's the argument that these people are merely athletes and should not be viewed as heroes or role models. but it's hard to ignore them, and the media doesn't filter out the bullshit. all too often, the good guys fall through the cracks.
i think i'll stop here because i could keep rambling on with no end in sight. and i haven't gotten into the wine yet.